( Dogen’s Instructions for the Cook – XXV)
Master Dogen also emphasizes that a small donation or gift, thoughmeagre yet given with sincerity and generosity, may mean more than a casual giving ofgreat treasure.
He references a couple of old Buddhist stories to make his point: The first (from the Treatise on the GreatPerfection of Wisdom)
is a story of a poor old woman who made a simple offering to Buddha of thewater that she had used to rinse rice and, as a result, was reborn to eventually became a buddhaherself. The second concerns the great King Ashoka who, unable one day to give gold or money, donated with sincerity a mere half a crabapple to a monastery, which the monks received courteously, ground into flour, and baked into acake which was shared by all (from the Ashoka sûtra).
The passage also refers to the Buddha as “Him of Ten Names“, because many names are used to describe the Buddha. One sometimes heard is “awake and generous one“, which seems fitting here.
As for the [proper]attitude in preparing food offerings and handling ingredients, do not debatethe fineness of things and do not debate their coarseness, but take asessential the profound arousal of a true mind and a respectful mind.
Have you not seen thata single bowl of starchy water, offered to Him of the Ten Names, naturallyresulted in wondrous merit that carried an old woman through future births; andthat half a crabapple fruit, given to a single monastery, enabled King Ashokafinally to establish his vast good karmic roots, gain a prediction, and bringabout a great result? Although they create a karmic connection with the Buddha,[donations that are] large and vacuous are not the same as [ones that are]small and sincere. This is the practice of a [true] person.
From: Tenzo Kyokun - Instructions for the Cook by Eihei Dogen - Translated by Griffith Foulk
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